‘Me? I just thought he’d read a lot of books.’
‘And they became friends – Robbie and Bell?’
‘She made sure of that.’
‘Guy I spoke to said they seemed like… mother and son.’
‘They were mates.’ Jon looked irritated. ‘Let’s not get silly about it.’
‘Did you talk to him about her?’
‘Once or twice.’
‘And how did he relate to her… special interests?’
‘You mean was he exposed to Bell’s obsession with all things death? I don’t know. This copper asked me that. Detective. You know what they’re like, trying to make you say things.’
Mumford.
‘I mean, what is this, Mary? Is this some scheme of Lackland’s to get her out of his hair for good? Stitch her up for assisting Robbie to do himself in? Turn the whole town against her?’
Merrily stared at him. ‘What makes you think he did himself in?’
‘I dunno.’ Jon jammed his hands in the lowest pockets of his leather jacket, rattling chains. ‘It just never made a lot of sense to me that he’d just fall off. Kid knew his way around every passage in that castle with his eyes shut. And then that girl – not much doubt about that, is there? She came here to die.’
‘Did you ever have any reason to think Robbie was depressed about anything?’
‘No, he were full of life when he… I never thought, you know? He said things maybe I should’ve put together. Like, you’d ask him about his parents, and his face would cloud over. I was thinking maybe divorce, so I stopped asking. Didn’t wanna upset him. We just don’t know, do we, how to react for the best? What do you think?’
‘I think there are some questions that nobody’s been asking. And I think everybody’s been walking round Belladonna as if she’s the Queen.’
‘Mary, next to Bell, the Queen’s anybody’s.’ He looked at her, standing a bit too close. ‘She could be interested in you. I mean, you know your stuff, don’t you? It’s just… the priest thing. And an exorcist, even worse. Like Rentokil for ghosts.’
‘We’re not—’
‘I know you’re not. I’m telling you how she’d see you.’
‘Doesn’t mind being in the church, though.’
‘That’s because it’s where it is. It’s obvious the church is one of the places. Right at the top of the town, at the centre, where all the lanes and alleyways come out. View from the top of the tower – amazing. You should see that, makes the Hanging Tower look like jumping off a stepladder. You been there yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Blimey, you gotta see that. We could go there now. Ten minutes. You got time?’
Merrily looked at her watch. It was coming up to one p.m. She needed a break to think about all this, and she wanted to speak to Mumford. But more than any of this, she felt the need to break the spell.
‘All right, what are you doing around, say, four o’clock?’ Jon said. ‘Suppose I meet you at the entrance to the car park, near the castle?’
She nodded. She’d have to see it sometime. At least this guy would know the exact spot. Four p.m. would give her time to talk to Mumford and try to see the interior decorator who, according to George Lackland, had had some peculiar requests made of him by Mrs Pepper.
‘OK.’
‘Ace. Meanwhile – Bell. Let me think about this. I mean, I reckon she’d take to you as a person.’ Jon Scole grinned. ‘They say she goes both ways.’
‘Not with me she doesn’t, Jonathan.’
‘Just kidding, Mary.’
26
The Mix
THERE WAS THIS feeling of unease now, whenever Merrily thought about Andy Mumford. Wouldn’t have been too surprised to spot him back on the prowl here in Ludlow. She felt he was teetering like Jemima Pegler had, and perhaps Robbie Walsh, over a long drop.
But when she rang from the Volvo he was at home.
‘How’re you?’ His voice was still higher than usual; he would hate that – every time he spoke, a reminder of the kid with the chain.
‘I’m fine.’ She was in the car park at the top of town, close to the castle. The day had dulled, thin grey clouds windshielding the sun like smoked glass. She crumpled up the cellophane wrapping of her lunch, one free-range egg-and-cress sandwich. ‘You seen a doctor, Andy?’
‘No need. It’s better than it was.’
‘Doesn’t sound it.’
‘That’s because it hurts more.’ Mumford wheezed out a laugh. ‘Where you calling from?’
‘I’m back in Ludlow.’
‘That a fact.’
‘I’ve got a few days off.’ She could hardly tell him about the Bishop or George Lackland. ‘Vicar with a black eye doesn’t look good in the pulpit. And I thought that, with you being persona non grata here, maybe I could… check a few things out?’
‘Good of you.’
‘So I went to talk to Jonathan Scole.’
‘Boy tried to bullshit me.’
‘I think it’s his way. He does seem to have been fond of Robbie, however. Poor kid had a virtual season ticket on the ghost-walk in return for lecturing the punters on local history.’
‘What about the woman?’
‘She seems to have milked Robbie, too. If I ever get to see her, I’ll let you know.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Watkins,’ Mumford said. Paused. ‘Oh… I had a bit of information, too. From headquarters.’
‘You finally spoke to Bliss?’
‘No, no. Another person this was, in the Division. Distant relation. Second cousin to a second cousin, kind of thing. Gives me a call now and then, we chats about this and that.’
Family. In this part of the world, no matter how thinly a blood link was stretched, it was there to be rediscovered when necessary.
‘Seems Jason Mebus finally turned seventeen,’ Mumford said.
‘And you missed his party.’
‘They had his party below stairs at Hereford, attended by former colleagues of mine. Jason got into a confrontation at the Orchard Gardens last night – pub by the Plascarreg? Two boys finished up seriously hammered in the car park.’
‘By Jason?’
‘By four of them, but the others were juveniles. Jason’s charged with ABH. His first as an adult.’
‘He’s off the streets, then?’
‘That en’t gonner happen till he kills somebody. He was bailed. If the presiding magistrate’s in a real bad mood, he’ll get community service, the others’ll have a stern ticking-off. One of the others, by the way, was Chain-boy – Connor Boyd, his name.’
‘How do you know it’s him?’
‘Moron still had the chain.’
‘Ah.’ She watched a young couple loading babies and groceries into a people-carrier parked against the wall under the castle, where some siege engine might once have stood. ‘Andy, does this… relative know what they did to you?’
‘Said I had a throat infection. Another one of them’s Connor’s half-brother, Shane Nicklin, twelve. I reckon he was likely the little angel who came in to see us on his own. Regular at juvenile court. Shot a toddler in the eye with an airgun when he was seven.’
‘A good family, then.’
‘An example to us all,’ Mumford said.
‘I’m rather embarrassed about this,’ Callum Corey said. ‘You shouldn’t be putting me in this position.’
He looked about twenty-three and wore a white silk shirt. He stretched his legs out, swivelling sulkily from side to side in his leather chair. On the wall behind his desk were framed photo blow-ups of the restoration jobs Coreys had handled, and it was impressive: baronial interiors, open log fires.
‘It’s all word-of-mouth in our profession, Mrs Watkins,’ Mr Corey said. ‘Any gossip of this sort gets out, it can do us immense harm. My father thought he was doing old Lackland a favour – didn’t think he was going to blab it all over town.’